Berlin E-Prix: Vergne takes pole by almost half a second

A brilliant last run in superpole, where he was fastest in all three sectors, scored him a 1m06.277s effort to pull out a 0.495s advantage over BMW Andretti driver Maximilian Gunther. 

Vergne qualified second to da Costa for the first race on the reversed Tempelhof Airport circuit on Wednesday but was a distant eighth for the Thursday E-Prix. But he responded brilliantly on Saturday, topping the group two runners and taking provisional top spot by 0.3s before then converting his advantage in the top-six fight to score his 11^th series pole. 

Jerome D’Ambrosio headed an impressive session for Mahindra Racing with third place, capped off by his strong form all-day in the final sector that retrieved him a tenth after a sloppy opening split.  

Stoffel Vandoorne led the way in group one over da Costa, but a huge lock up into Turn 6 added to a wall touch exiting Turn 9 and consigned him to a fourth-place start after his superpole run. 

Alex Lynn – D’Ambrosio’s teammate – continued his sterling one-lap pace as he progressed from group four to superpole, but he took too much kerb at Turn 9 to fall 0.9s off the pace after Vergne’s flier. 

Envision Virgin Racing driver Robin Frijns ran slowest in the top six battle. Super aggressive into Turn 1, he lost the rear end and began to overheat his tyres. 

That transpired through Turn 7 as he suffered a big spike of oversteer and then ran well wide at the Turn 9 hairpin to end up 0.903s adrift.   

With the Porsche driver Andre Lotterer the first out of the top-six shootout in seventh, he headed Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries who was out early on track in group two but glanced the wall exiting Turn 4. 

Despite the overstep, he was a provisional fifth to demote runaway points leader da Costa out of superpole running. 

DS Techeetah driver da Costa, who won both races on the reversed Tempelhof circuit, made a Turn 6 mistakes to wind up 0.224s off group one pacesetter Vandoorne – with team boss Mark Preston reporting that a mandated 0.1-bar reduction in tyre pressure had hurt his driver overnight. 

Oliver Rowland completed the top 10 for Nissan ahead of Lucas di Grassi and a scruffy but quick lap for Dragon Racing pilot Serge Sette Camara. 

Felipe Massa’s slow opening sector undid all his hard work over the remainder of the lap to line up 13^th for Venturi Racing ahead of teammate Edoardo Mortara. 

Sebastien Buemi, second for Nissan e.dams on Thursday, was just 15^th ahead of another poor run from BMW Andretti contestant Alexander Sims. 

A 17^th place for James Calado meant for the first time on pace - not due to a team error - he outqualified Jaguar stablemate Mitch Evans. 

Evans reported a “smooth, clean” lap and was surprised to wind up so far down the order, having been a clear title contender in second place prior to the season resumption. 

Sam Bird was ranked down in 20^th for Envision Virgin Racing after getting stuck behind Vandoorne on his flying lap in group one.  

Cla	Driver		Team	Time	Gap	km/h
1	Jean-Eric Vergne		Techeetah	1'06.277		127.917
2	Maximilian Gunther		Andretti Autosport	1'06.772	0.495	126.969
3	Jérôme d'Ambrosio		Mahindra Racing	1'06.825	0.548	126.868
4	Stoffel Vandoorne		Mercedes	1'06.965	0.688	126.603
5	Alex Lynn		Mahindra Racing	1'07.177	0.900	126.203
6	Robin Frijns		Virgin Racing	1'07.180	0.903	126.198
7	Andre Lotterer		Porsche Team	1'06.867	0.590	126.788
8	Nyck de Vries		Mercedes	1'06.907	0.630	126.713
9	Antonio Felix da Costa		Techeetah	1'06.938	0.661	126.654
10	Oliver Rowland		DAMS	1'06.947	0.670	126.637
11	Lucas di Grassi		Team Abt	1'06.960	0.683	126.612
12	Sergio Sette Camara		Dragon Racing	1'07.077	0.800	126.392
13	Felipe Massa		Venturi	1'07.090	0.813	126.367
14	Edoardo Mortara		Venturi	1'07.098	0.821	126.352
15	Sébastien Buemi		DAMS	1'07.140	0.863	126.273
16	Alexander Sims		Andretti Autosport	1'07.141	0.864	126.271
17	James Calado		Jaguar Racing	1'07.147	0.870	126.260
18	Neel Jani		Porsche Team	1'07.193	0.916	126.173
19	Mitch Evans		Jaguar Racing	1'07.197	0.920	126.166
20	Sam Bird		Virgin Racing	1'07.208	0.931	126.145
21	René Rast		Team Abt	1'07.261	0.984	126.046
22	Daniel Abt		NIO Formula E Team	1'07.331	1.054	125.915
23	Nico Müller		Dragon Racing	1'07.366	1.089	125.849
24	Oliver Turvey		NIO Formula E Team	1'07.521	1.244	125.560
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